Written by PETA
With Yom Kippur just around the corner, we'd like to urge all our Jewish readers to speak out against the killing of chickens for kapporos.
Kapporos is a sacrificial ritual that takes place on the eve of Yom Kippur. This ritual is sometimes performed by swinging a live chicken around the head three times and then slaughtering the terrified, abused bird. In Brooklyn alone, 50,000 chickens are killed every year during kapporos ceremonies.
Rabbi Joseph Karo, who composed the Shulchan Aruch (an important codification of Jewish law), wrote that killing an animal for kapporos is "a foolish custom."
Using money instead of live chickens to perform the kapporos ritual is an acceptable substitute for outdated chicken sacrifices, which all compassionate Jews should condemn.
After all, you can't expect forgiveness and mercy when you have blood on your hands.
Written by Shawna Flavell
Thanks for all of your wonderful comments on this Win It Wednesday. The winner of the guitar strap is Kristen. Congratulations!
You've got the hair. You've got the eyeliner. You've got the guitar. But wait, what's the one thing every real rock star needs? A cruelty-free guitar strap, of course.
For this week's "Win It" Wednesday, we've got you covered. We're giving away one quality guitar strap from the stellar all-vegan company Couch Guitar Straps.
Leather is a co-product—not a byproduct—of the meat and dairy industries. When you buy leather, you contribute directly to the lifelong misery of cows and other animals, and you put money into the pockets of the people who exploit them.
How do you save a cow and gain a vegan guitar strap? Leave a comment about why cows are as cool as your favorite vegan musician. Whoever posts the most rockin' comment gets to choose a strap from Couch Guitar Straps (priced up to $38, including shipping and handling).
The contest ends on October 7, 2009, and we'll choose one comment as the winner on October 9, 2009. Be sure to read our privacy policy and terms and conditions, as you're agreeing to both by commenting.
Good luck!
Written by Heather Drennan
When real-estate flipper Geoffrey King heard that a 101-year-old church in the struggling town of Cairo, Illinois, was going up for sale, he came up with a plan to benefit the community. King spent a year fixing up the church and then listed the building on eBay for $50,000.
His plan? Donate half the profits to build a pool for local kids.
The heartbreaking part? Nobody bid on the church.
Well, PETA knows a little something about compassion—so we've written to King and offered to rent the church until it sells. If he agrees, we'll rename the church the "Praise Seitan Center" (because delicious wheat "meat" is truly heavenly) and use it to educate Cairo residents about how the Bible imparts a reverence for life—and a loving God could not help but be appalled by the way that animals are mistreated today. People can put Christian principles into practice three times a day, seven days a week, by eating healthy and humane vegetarian foods.
Our offer will help King save up funds for the Cairo pool and create a more kind community. I really hope he doesn't let this opportunity pass by.
Written by Liz Graffeo
Have you been sitting around the house, wondering why your old chum, Sir Roger Moore, hasn't given you a ring lately?
Truthfully, me neither, but if you are ever given the chance to get on his good side, you should know that opting for foie gras over truffles will get you pulled from his next party's guest list.
In a recent article for the Daily Mail, Sir Roger writes about the horrors of the foie gras industry, in which birds are force-fed, often until their livers burst. "I refuse to speak to old friends who, even when they know how it is produced, are prepared to overlook the suffering for self-gratification," states Sir Roger. "My wife, Christina, feels just the same. No creature deserves to be treated as these birds are for our delectation."
Talk about commitment to a cause.
Want to know what else Sir Roger Moore is doing in support of PETA's campaign to get foie gras eliminated from menus across the globe? Check out the rest of the article here.
Back in March, we told you about the USDA's investigation at Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC). The investigation came about as a result of a PETA complaint exposing that a monkey had been operated on by mistake; that a sick, pregnant monkey had been denied veterinary care; and that other abuses had taken place. The USDA backed up our findings, citing ONPRC for violations of the Animal Welfare Act and issuing the facility a warning. And let's not forget what we found during our undercover investigation.
Well, it's been barely seven months, and ONPRC is in hot water again. According to a lawsuit filed by InVivo Therapeutics—one of the companies that hired ONPRC to torture experiment on monkeys—ONPRC so severely neglected seven monkeys whose spinal cords it had surgically severed that four of the monkeys had to be euthanized.
Of course, the lawsuit is a lose-lose for the monkeys. InVivo had paid ONPRC to paralyze the animals so that researchers could implant them with a device developed by InVivo in order to see if they would regain any movement. In the lawsuit, InVivo alleges that early in the research period, more than one third of the monkeys provided by ONPRC suffered illnesses or injuries such as bladder problems because ONPRC failed to provide the proper post-surgery care or a medical device necessary to keep their bodily systems functioning. InVivo also alleges that at least one monkey developed "a debilitating staph infection" as a result of bacteria at ONPRC.
The publicity surrounding the case has shined another spotlight on abuses at ONPRC as well as the inadequacy of the federal law that is supposed to protect animals in laboratories.
If you have a strong stomach, go to StopAnimalTests.com to find out more about the cruel, redundant, and archaic experiments conducted on primates at ONPRC, and then dash off a letter to the National Institutes of Health, urging it to stop funneling your tax dollars to ONPRC.
Written by Alisa Mullins
In a new ad for PETA Europe, Britain's top-notch squash player James Willstrop is out to unite vegetable fans and sports fans around the world.
Once he kicked animal flesh out of his diet, James noticed a surge in his energy levels and his speed. He's used these newfound super-vegetarian powers to squash not only obesity but also the competition at several major world tournaments.
Willstrop joins other athletes—including Prince Fielder, Georges Laraque, NBA stars Raja Bell and John Salley, MMA fighters Mac Danzig and Dale Hart, and Olympic great Carl Lewis—who have risen to the top of their games on a vegetarian diet. Taking PETA's "Pledge to Be Veg" can help you do the same.
All right, I tried to resist, but it's just too easy: In honor of James, check out this delicious squash recipe.
After a healthy amount of prodding from PETA, Heartland Regional Medical Center in St. Joseph, Missouri, has announced that it is planning to stop jamming hard plastic tubes down cats' windpipes for intubation training in its Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) course. They are making the switch to state-of-the-art manikins by the end of this month.
Back in June, PETA contacted hospital administrators and urged them to replace the cruel use of cats for intubation training. We wanted them to start using the more effective, humane humanlike simulators that are endorsed by the PALS course's sponsor organization and that are used at nearly every PALS facility in the country. Heartland resisted. But after two months, a USDA complaint from PETA, a letter, a phone call from one of the original developers of the PALS course, and thousands of e-mails from caring PETA supporters, Heartland administrators have had a change of heart.
Switching to manikins is purrfect—cats are spared, and nurses, EMTs, and other emergency caregivers get more accurate and effective training.
What's the holdup, St. Louis Children's Hospital?
On the heels of government rebate programs to exchange old, smelly products for brand-spanking-new ones, PETA is working with our friends MooShoes to give compassionate New Yorkers $10 off the purchase of fabulous vegan footwear when they turn in a pair of shoes made from the skins of dead, abused animals.
Leather is bad for animals and bad for the environment, so there's no excuse to keep wrapping your tootsies in it. And now, newly compassionate NYC consumers who don't have the money for a cruelty-free wardrobe makeover (hint, hint, TLC—that'd be a ratings shoe-in!) can get at least a little help. Anyone who brings in a pair of leather sneakers, pumps, or loafers to the MooShoes store in New York before September 27 will receive a $10 credit toward a pair of snazzy vegan shoes.
MooShoes will donate all the leather shoes it receives to the homeless youth shelter Streetwork Project, making this one cattle drive with a happy ending.
This weekend, an attempt by Ronald McDonald to con San Francisco youngsters into eating more greasy, artery-clogging burgers and McNuggets was interrupted by an anonymous "chicken," who apparently was not going to take McDonald's abuse of chickens lying down.
Here comes the wind-up …
Note the artful splatter of the vegan cream.
Mr. Chicken makes his getaway in his trusty "old school" Vans.
Here's hoping Ronald got the message that he needs to start treating chickens with a little more respect. Switching to CAK would be a good start.
Earlier today on the streets of New York City, a taxi lost control and crashed into a horse-drawn carriage. The carriage driver was tossed out of the carriage, landed in the street, and was eventually taken to the hospital with the taxi driver. The horse bolted from the scene.
Donny Moss, the director of Blinders, was able to get footage of the accident's aftermath.
This is not the first time that a car and a carriage have collided on the streets of New York City, and unless officials in New York ban horse-drawn carriages for good, you can bet that it won’t be the last.
Please, take a moment and send a polite message to New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg letting him know that he should follow the lead of cities such as London, Paris, and Beijing and ban carriages from his city’s streets. Please do it before someone else gets hurt.
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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